


Doubts

by JayceCarter



Series: Random Fallout Shenanigans [12]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Pre-Relationship, Self-Doubt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 17:31:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11787993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayceCarter/pseuds/JayceCarter
Summary: Nora has always seemed unstoppable, but when Preston gets a look at the fragile woman beneath the legend, he realizes no one can be strong forever.





	Doubts

 

“General?” Preston knocked on the faded blue door of Nora’s house, the hot metal burning his knuckles.

 

“Yes?”

 

He hesitated. Did that mean come in? “It’s me, Preston Garvey.” 

 

“What can I do for you?” Her voice came out strained, so unlike the woman he’d grown used to.

 

Nora Jacob’s was an unstoppable force in the Commonwealth, a single woman who had managed to alter the path of countless lives, though none more than himself.

 

She was the thing he couldn’t have, but always wanted, like a monument to what determination could do.

 

“May I come in?”

 

A paused, so long he almost thought about walking away, before her soft voice floated through the door. “Sure.”

 

Preston opened the door, pulling it closed behind him. Darkness filled the house, none of the lights on. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, for the details of the house to come into focus.

 

Nora stood in the kitchen, at the small island that overlooked the living room, working on her pistol. She took it apart, then reassembled it. Over and over, mindless movement that she did as if nothing else in the world existed.

 

“Ma’am?”

 

“Don’t call me that.” Her voice help the same quiver he’d heard before, one he’d never heard from her.

 

Preston walked forward until he stood on the other side of the counter. “Are you all right?”

 

She didn’t look up from her work, and the slight shaking of her hands slowed her progress. “Yep. Always am. I have to be, right?”

 

Preston reached out, setting a hand on hers, stilling her. “No, you don’t have to be.”

 

Her gaze locked on where he touched her. “He died.”

 

“Who?”

 

“Timothy, that boy I saved from the raiders, the one who’d been kidnapped. I got him back to his family, and three weeks later, he was killed in a Super Mutant raid.”

 

Oh. He wanted to feel shock, but shock didn’t come easily anymore. Shock was for the naïve, for those who hadn’t seen the cruelty of their world. He was past shock, having settled into reaction instead. The world was terrible, but he strove to make it better.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

Nora pulled her hand from his and shoved the pieces of her pistol off the counter, sending it all clattering to the floor with the swipe of an arm. “What is the fucking point of any of this? If I save someone and they get killed a few weeks later, please tell me, what is the fucking point? Why am I doing any of this?” She picked up the glass at the far end and threw it against the wall. “I can’t save any of them, but they all look at me like I can. Everyone looks at me like I can do it all and I can’t, Preston. I can’t fucking do it.” And then the anger left her in a rush and she collapsed as if only her anger had held her upright.

 

Preston circled the counter until he could crouch in front of her, the shaking of her back telling him she cried.

 

Nora Jacobs crying? If he’d heard someone say that, he’d have called them a liar and suggested they never say it again, or she might shoot them herself for the insult.

 

But here she laid, fingers wrapped in her hair, tears causing spots of grime on the floor to turn dark brown.

 

Preston pulled his gloves off and set a hand on her shoulder. She didn’t yank away, didn’t flinch, so he used it to pull her forward and into a tight hug, pressing her face against his neck. Wetness covered his skin where her face touched him.

 

He forgot at times what she’d been through, that beneath the legend she’d become, she was still a person. A person who’d lost her family, her world, everything. A person who had to start over, who had to fight just to survive. Right then? Right then he remembered.

 

He rubbed her back, his other hand cupping her nape. Her hands wrapped beneath his arms, fingers digging into his back as she clutched.

 

After a moment, she pulled back but stayed close. “I don’t know what to do, Preston. I can’t do this; I can’t save everyone.”

 

“No, you can’t. No one can. If anyone understands that, it’s me. I took twenty people from Quincy, and you saw how many survived when you saved us in Concord. Five, that’s all I had left. I wanted to save them all, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t even save most of them, only saving a few.”

 

“So what’s the point?”

 

“Ask Sturges what the point is. Ask Mama Murphey.”

 

“Sure, they made it. I wonder if those fifteen who died thought it was worth it?”

 

Preston took Nora’s hand in his, a tight grip. “I’d bet they were glad they had the extra time. That boy who died? You think his family and friends feel like there was no point? They got three weeks they wouldn’t have had, three weeks extra with him. If you could have three more weeks with Nate, wouldn’t they be worth it?” He reached up with his free hand and stroked his fingers over her cheek, clearing away the tear tracks. “Time is time, Nora, even if it isn’t as much as we’d like.”

 

Nora leaned into the touch, nuzzling against it, a movement so at odds with her normally harsh attitude. “How do you do it? How do you keep going? These other people, they’re fighting for bullshit, all of them. MacCready for caps, and Deacon for his past, and Danse for some code. You? You keep going, just doing good, and I don’t know how you always do it. How you keep doing good when the world keeps screwing us over?”

 

Preston rubbed his thumb over her skin as he touched her. “Because it’s right. Because I’ve seen what happens when you do nothing. When you stand back, Quincy happens, and I won’t let that happen because I didn’t do anything.”

 

“Don’t you ever get tired of playing a losing game? You never look like it bothers you. You’re always unshakable.”

 

He smiled at that, at the stupid idea that it never got to him. How many nights had he cracked a bottle of vodka and sat in the dark of his room, drowning his sorrow in a bottle? “Trust me, I’m very shakable. It isn’t an easy life we choose, but it’s the right one. I remind myself of that when it becomes too difficult, that I’d rather have one day of living right than a lifetime of living wrong.”

 

Nora leaned forward, brushing her lips against his, a question more than a kiss. She was asking him, did he want this? Was there anything there?

 

She pulled back when he didn’t move, when he didn’t return the kiss. “Sorry,” she whispered.

 

“Why?”

 

“Why not? You’re the only good person left, I think. Fuck, you make me look bad. You’re my rock, the person who keeps me on the right path. When I want to quit, when I think that giving in is easier, I see you standing there beside me, and I push on. I keep going. You’re the world I want to build.”

 

Her words soaked into him, soothing all those broken pieces in him, the ones from all his failures, from all the times he wasn’t good enough to save people, wasn’t fast enough or strong enough. He slid his hand from her cheek to the back of her neck and pulled her back to him.

 

He kissed her, an answer to her question. Not desperate, not hard or fast, just there. It was them, two people who stood tall in a world determined to drag them under, and he kissed her like that.

 

After a moment, he pulled back, not wanting to rush her. “Never thought that would happen,” he admitted.

 

“I might have thought about it a few times.” Nora’s lips slid into a smirk.

 

“Oh did you? Care to share?”

 

“Not without a whole lot of alcohol.” She took a deep breath before beginning to gather the pieces of her pistol she’d knocked to the floor. “What were you going to tell me? Because I’m sure it wasn’t about my meltdown.”

 

The note in his pocket, the information that a group of Gunners had attacked Oberland Station, killing two before they fought him off, mocked him. Instead of saying it, he smiled. “We can deal with that tomorrow. I think you’ve earned a night off. How about I go get a whole lot of alcohol, you get us dinner, and we talk about those thoughts, huh?”

 

Nora smiled, a real smile, one that would be gone when she heard the news, when they had to remember they couldn’t save everyone, but she did deserve the night. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

 

Maybe, just for that night, just for once, he could save her.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the slow updates the last few days. I've been struggling a little with my anxiety this last week a lot, so despite having written quite a lot, I just haven't been able to bring myself to post. I'm hoping to kick this soon and get back to my normal posting, but here is something short I wrote for someone I never normally write. :)


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